Similarly, gender-based identity politics will only intensify what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls the “battle between sexes” and weaken institutions such as the family. The radical feminist demand for strong gender-based identities, the abolition of the family and mothering role can destroy social harmony. Marxist feminists have taken a more pragmatic viewpoint calling for restructuring the family, ending domestic slavery and the collective methods of child-rearing and household maintenance. Thus, class can be effectively used as an instrument for the integration of excluded sections in society. Identity politics, on the other hand, can be extremely divisive.  (letter here)

Like the caste census, this is an issue that confuses me every time I talk about it. My friend Sreeram and I were recently talking about this, and his point was that social movements or reservations to bring people of a particular identity into a class fold is fine, but within the class fold there should be no identities. Which made sense, as in class is not an umbrella for differing identities but a monolith and a melting pot. The way I understood is that if graduate students is a class, movements or help to get the weaker sections of society into that class is acceptable while identities like gender, caste, race, color, or nationality will not be recognized within the class. I might be completely off here. What do you think?

“my president, whose agenda can be derailed at any moment by a jihadist death cult using exploding underpants.”

And

what does the war on terror give us? Better drones, body scanners and a lot of desultory T.S.A. security jobs at airports. “Sputnik spurred us to build a highway to the future,” added Mandelbaum. “The war on terror is prompting us to build bridges to nowhere.”

This dangerous balance of the nation’s priorities was not reached in a day. The military-media-government-industrial-religious complex works the 24 hour news cycle, 365 days a year to push the society to a nervous state of fear. I think this article is very important in an American and Indian context. Policy makers should have the courage to make decisions which may not go well with the mob’s opinion, and the mob should understand that every news story is trying to prepare them to go to war. Such an understanding might help in realizing why the Indian left opposed making a missile man the country’s president, why Narendra Modis are always wrong even when they build spectacular highways, why every speculative article about Chinese aggression in India’s cess-pool broadcasters is not harming China but contaminating our national psyche, why we shouldn’t fight terrorists ourselves in our drawing rooms and facebooks and twitters, but leave that jobs to men who are paid for that, and why we should switch off the television sets and burn that copy of Times of India. The fight between the right and the left is not about 542 seats in the house, but about half a billion young minds in the making, and that’s why the Republic Day parade where missiles are displayed should be banned. Then may be we will create a country where the ‘mind is without fear’.

“If anyone raises a finger towards Hindus or if someone thinks that Hindus are weak and leaderless, if someone thinks that these leaders lick our boots for votes, if anyone raises a finger towards Hindus, then I swear on Gita that I will cut that hand.”  – Times

‘Gau hatya rukwana hai, Varun Gandhi ko jitana hai’ (Cow slaughter must stop, Varun Gandhi must win) and “Varun nahin yeh aandhi hai, doosra Sanjay Gandhi hai (Varun Gandhi is like a storm, he is another Sanjay Gandhi)”. – HT

Says Varun Gandhi of BJP on his campaign trail to make L K Advani the next Prime Minister of India. He is 29. Can you take this? Another nakli Gandhi for like another five decades.

But if there is anyone out there who believes what Varun Gandhi says, like the BJP which might be having gleeful visions of a Saffron Gandhi, they’ll most probably be proven wrong before the 2009 political season ends. Because there is none other more Secular than a Gandhi. It doesn’t matter to a Gandhi if you slaughter a cow, a muslim or a sikh. It doesn’t matter to a Gandhi if you do shilanyas or destroy a mosque or you forcibly castrate a thousand. It doesn’t matter to a Gandhi if you are a tamil terrorist or an Akali radical. Capitalism, socialism or public or private banks don’t matter. Nuclear deal or no deal does not matter. Forcible evictions for a car factory or a Kalawati doesn’t matter. Democracy or Article 356 or Emergency does not matter. All that matters to a Gandhi is the Gandhi’s right to power. In every possible way, a Gandhi is truly secular. Only arguable exception is Mohandas Karamchand asli Gandhi. Then again, even Varun wouldn’t dream of being a doosra Sanjay Gandhi. One reason is India has changed.  But a more persuasive reason is that Sanjay Gandhi’s mother’s name meant ‘India’ at one point in time.

The Gandhis contesting on the Congress ticket at least seem to have come to terms with their mortal nature, given the pre-poll alliances they are building. But some people back home in Kerala seem to be so keenly out of touch with reality (like  nakli Iron Man of India’s website) that they are indeed as Varun nakli Gandhi says ‘raising their middle fingers’ at Hindus.

Like Archbishop Daniel Acharuparambil of the Latin Catholic Church.

The powerful Latin Catholic Church in Kerala has written to Congress president Sonia Gandhi urging the party to consider Hybi Eden, chief of the Congress’ student wing, as party candidate for the Ernakulam Lok Sabha seat. – The Hindu

‘Powerful‘ as in,

Ironically, whenever the church sponsored a Congress candidate, with public statements and pastoral letters, he lost. Edezhath, a close confidant of the high priests, lost by over 70,000 votes to an LDF independent in 2004. – DNA

Here, as I am located, in the heart of the Ernakulam constituency, this stupid letter which claims even the number of votes Acharuparambil has will do no good to the candidate, the Congress party or the larger Catholic interests but will only help consolidate Hindu and Muslim votes in favour of CPM’s arguably weakest candidate in the state – Sindhu Joy. If Hybi is indeed the candidate and if Sindhu defeats him, Acharuparambil Archbishop will have to wear a uniquely malayali ‘thorthu mundu’ over his head while he ventures out of his den in Varapuzha.

Perhaps what Acharuparambil Archbishop should have done was to take a leaf out of Nair Service Society’s (NSS) Narayana Panicker’s Book of Strategics. This is how it goes – tell the media that you’ll defeat 10 candidates (across 20 constituencies), and tell them that the names are secret. After the election, minimum 20 candidates will be defeated, and then, THEN tell the media how effective you were in defeating 10 people and claim how powerful Samsthakerala Nairs are.

P.S: The two parties, CPM and Congress who fight for the torch of Indian Secularism, could may be go through this very simple test to prove their secularism (at least in the next 20 years) – A Christian Candidate in Malappuram or Ponnani; A Hindu Candidate in Eranakulam and a A Muslim Candidate in Kottayam.(how about next 50 years?)

Willard: ” They told me that you had gone totally insane and that your methods were unsound.” 

Kurtz: “Are my methods unsound?”

Willard: ” I don’t see any method at all, sir.”

From Coppola’s Apocalypse Now

Manmohan Singh is an honourable man and for the time being I’m assuming the Nuclear Deal is good for the country. There is no questioning his credentials as a technocrat, nor has he given reasons to doubt his patriotism. He was never a mass leader, but then he never pretended to be one even after becoming Prime Minister. Manmohan was never disloyal to the Gandhi family despite having to share his legacy with the UPA Chairperson. He is secretive, then as I’d read, callosity from being in the beurocracy for decades doesn’t melt away so soon.

Manmohan Singh knows well that when history appraises him, his legacy will be closely knit to how well economic reforms fared in India. It might be this pressure that makes him overboard to convince the corporates. There is a decade old joke that Foreign Investors come to India thinking that he is still the Finance Minister. Despite utterances on inclusive growth, Manmohan has mostly been the Corporates’ man talking to the people of India. The Prime Ministers before him were populists talking to the Corporates.

I’m not saying this is bad, it might actually be good for India because people who invest would like to invest in a place, where executive power will not be handled irresponsibly. And Manmohan Singh has created an environment where whoever be the driver, he cannot easily derail the train.

But there is an inherent problem with this. Manmohan Singh was not elected by the people – he is not a Lok Sabha member, nor is he a mass leader with roots in any political movement. He doesn’t act like a leader who can electrify the nation and he knows he cannot be one now.

Hence, he doesn’t need to convince the people of India, nor does he value their mandate. It is logical for a technocrat to conclude that an issue like the Nuclear Deal cannot be understood along with its long term consequences by the people of India – a large chunk who is illiterate and struggling with day to day issues. This could be why Manmohan showed disdain for Parliament.

Do I find his methods unsound? Yes I do. Because I am a citizen. And it makes me a second class citizen.

The United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act was passed by the US Congress (359-68) and the US Senate (85-12). In the same manner, shouldn’t this strategic tie-up be approved by the Indian Parliament? Manmohan could have evaded the Indian Parliament for three reasons,

1. Manmohan was afraid of the Left Parties - This is highly improbable. The vote in the US Houses clearly show that both Republicans and Democrats have voted together. Don’t we need that kind of a consensus in India too, where all national players are aligned on the broad framework and direction of the Foreign and Economic policy? The Left parties cannot hijack a Parliamentary decision – they have only 59 MPs. If the PM had addressed the concerns of the BJP, the Parliament would have endorsed the Deal by a two-thirds majority. Isn’t that how policy is made? And then even if the BJP comes to power in 2009, they will not renege on the pact! Isn’t that what the world community and the US wants?

2. Indians are 2nd Class citizens of the world - The representatives of the American people have to approve the Deal, but not their Indian counterparts. Because the Indian people are 2nd class citizens of the world living in a 3rd rate democracy where highly educated technocrats like Manmohan Singh and Abdul Kalam and Anil Kakodkar take decisions for them. Manmohan is a lame duck Prime Minister in such a hurry to make a deal with a lame duck President of the United States, that too the most unpopular one in history, despite the fact that the probable Democratic incumbent has made it clear that he is Ok with the deal.

In that case, I’ll probably declare myself a Republic and be a first class citizen of the world like Arundhati Roy put it. But before that as an Indian citizen, here’s my one vote against Manmohan’s confidence motion. Nay!

3. Manmohan thought he could get away with it - When Manmohan Singh moves the one-line confidence vote on July 21st, the Indian Parliament will be finally voting for the Nuclear Deal, thanks to the Left parties.

P.S: If Congress ends up battered in the next General Elections, then the Left will have nothing much to do. Another Political winter for the leftist-centrist forces in India. But if the Congress puts up a decent show and the Left comes back with 50 MPs, they could come together again minus Manmohan.

P.P.S: With Manmohan out, Pranab and Arjun cancelling each out and Patil vetoed by the left, it could really be this guy. Good old Mr Clean!

….that time has come

- Signed: Prakash Karat, A B Bardhan, Debabrata Biswas, T J Chandrachoodan

- and a few of us sighed and others,

Good Riddance! said the TOI editorial,
Lal Salaam! said Bloody Mary and,
in the mayhem added that
airports must be privatized.

I dont know why Sagarika says that all the time,
maybe even the media has an agenda
Do I know what the Left’s agenda is?

then I don’t know why they’re leaving,
Or where they gonna go,
I guess they got their reasons,
But I just don’t want to know.

Because in early 2004, in reply to a mail which asked whether he was still alive an old comrade said “I am very much alive, and so is the hope for a non NDA alternative at Centre“. AMEN. Hope as a strategy works in theology, not in politics. But then YSR Reddy swept Andhra for the Congress, the BJP declined in key states and the Left posted their best tally ever. The national destiny was re-written with the UPA and Left coming together based on a Common Minimum Programme, and Sonia Gandhi delivering the master stroke by relinquishing the PMO and denying BJP its last straw.

Now that the UPA and the Left are parting, or cutting the flab, the Congress and the CPM are back to their pre-2004 line ups, it is time to take stock. Critics across the divide are looking at the half year they did not give the nation, but what about the four and a half years they gave the nation.

The Good of UPA-Left years

Stability with Dignity: If one remembers the NDA years, despite the coalition having 300 odd seats in the 545 member house, there was George Fernandes and Pramod Mahajan skirting from one “Allied” capital to another appeasing the allies, and the national political scene became a circus around the whims of Trinamool,the DMK, the Sena and other regional and single-issue parties. Despite their differences, and the fact that they are political opponents in the Left’s bastions of Bengal and Kerala, there was a certain dignity maintained by both parties even during the WB & Kerala assembly elections in 2006. Which other two political parties can do this?

The UPA too had constituents, if one looks closely, who don’t have any national accountability and could have rocked the boat any time. This was prevented by those 59 MPs from the left, who sat right in the middle of the house and to some extent by Mulayam Singh’s 39 who toed the Left’s line on any issue. The leaders of the Congress party and the CPM never crossed the limits, and India had 4 and a half years of a stable coalition that worked with dignity.

The Centrist Centre Stage: If one remembers the NDA years, the national stage was pretty much dominated by whether the Vishwa Hindu Parishad will give more time to the centre before they start building the Ram temple? or whether Godhra was the trigger for Gujarat riots? or whether Narendra Moditva can be replicated?

The debate shifted with the 2004 verdict. The Left had no need to interpret the 2004 verdict as one for secularism – for them it was an anti-Congress verdict in Kerala and Bengal, but they did.  “Pseudo-Secularism” – I haven’t heard that word used that often in the past 4 years. India started talking about inclusive growth despite the shining. Programmes like NREG and the Loan Waiver, despite the criticism, made the nation’s priorities clear. The national debate shifted to the left of centre.

Reader’s Words has sanely put it, in the tragic end of an experiment

If the UPA had not gone ahead with the deal, it might have suffered a temporary loss of face, and the Left would have taken the flak for its obstinacy. Ironically, it was Mrs Sonia Gandhi who used the Gandhian technique of sacrificing a position and winning a moral battle. Manmohan Singh has done exactly the reverse- he might have won a battle, but he has lost the war and put to rest the experiment to build a Centrist United Front.

It is a political oppurtunity lost, but I hope the Congress and the CPM come together again in 2009 because they are both patriotic parties and dignified partners. Hope is not a strategy in itself, but as my friend said in 2004, hope is alive for a non-NDA alternative at centre.

The mainstream media which trashes blogs for their “opinionated posts lacking editorial control and thoroughgoing research” continues to surprise me with their half baked truths, thorough lies and embedded ideologies. The difference here is, they are paid to do what they are doing (with access to information) and many of them Bloody Marys are doing a very bad job at that. This time it is John Mary’s article in Outlook magazine on the Kannur situation. When such a senior journalist (who wears a cloak of political neutrality) trashes out such an article, it could be that…

a. He is the guy who doesn’t do his job – don’t think so?

b. He is lazy – thats me

c. umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – whats this?

d. He sold out – you mean he wants to cheat people?

Now who is concerned about Kannur?

The incidents in Kannur have assumed a place in the national media centre stage after the attack on the CPM HQ in Delhi and similar attempts on party offices across India. Kannur was debated in the Lok Sabha and stalled the house proceedings. In a weeks time, the now controversial US report on Human Rights made a mention of Kannur. So when John Mary writes his article in Outlook, there will be readers who are as curious about Kannur as they were about Nandigram. And John Mary’s article is indeed an old art form, scattering facts, dates and third party opinions.

Excerpts:

What is the genesis of this hatred? It dates back to 1958 when the Ganesh Beedi factory shifted to Mangalore in neighbouring Karnataka due to labour problems, and many lost their jobs. The RSS stepped in and helped many secure alternate jobs, winning over several Communists to its side. Things turned bloody in 1968 when RSS swayamsevak Vadikkal Ramakrishnan was killed, triggering off the cycle of red-saffron war.

Factually wrong or rather a contended fact. Vadikkal Ramakrishnan’s name which is mentioned in the article should go in conjunction with Kunhiraman who died from the other side. The beedi factory issue should go in conjunction with Thalassery communal riots instigated by the RSS. Problem here is Thalassery riots which is the origin of the “legends of martyrs” in Kannur doesn’t even find a mention.

Both are equally brutal but violence escalates when CPI(M) is in power

of the 166 people murdered in Kannur in the past decades, CPIM has a comfortable majority. Very similar to their majority in the assembly. What does that say..let me think…

It might not have won a single seat in an assembly or Lok Sabha election in the state, but the BJP has been able to improve on its voteshare over the years, especially in the local council polls. Quite often, at the macro-level, in the assembly or Parliament elections, its net share of the vote eats into that of other candidates. The logic could be either to reduce the Congress in Parliament or checkmate the CPI(M) in the assembly.

BJP’s numbers in the state has been dwindling in the past five elections. Did John Mary write the article before that? BJP’s strategy has been largely successful in preventing Congress forming a government at the centre and the CPM in the state. Kudos!

BJP’s vote share was 0.5% in the Kannur disctrict. Thats a lot on a macro-level!

Added to that is the fact that the membership of RSS and the number of “shakas” in the state had a free fall in the past five years. A fact that even the RSS acknowledges, but John Mary refuses to.

According to the RSS, the Marxists suffered—and still suffer from—a fear psychosis because many of its cadres have crossed over to the rss. The CPI(M) leaders, upon seeing erosions in its camp, accuse the RSS of accomplishing this by violence.

There is only one Hindu fundamentalist force in Kerala and that is the CPM. Outsiders may not know, but a senior journalist should. Yes, the CPM membership has declined according to the RSS. Also according to the RSS, we had aircrafts in India in the later Vedic age. I didn’t see any “According to the CPM” btw. Not that I want to.

Kannur’s legacy of fighting the might of the British, then the Emergency and the pervasive traditional martial arts culture equip homegrown rss activists to position themselves as protectors of the middle class against CPI(M) cadres.

RSS fighting the British in Kannur, RSS cadres fighting the emergency and a direct lineage of the chekavar Samurais. RSS protecting the middle class. Is this a movie script or something? spoof?

John Mary’s witnesses

Ha the best part, John Mary quotes two very interesting people,

“Comments Congress leader K Sudhakaran” – Now who is K Sudhakaran? Atleast Keralites would remember the erstwhile leader of the anti-CPM mob violence in the state. Accused in the attempted murder of CPM leader P Jayarajan (who still carries a bullet). Very neutral point of view indeed. Why not ask Fidel Castro on who’s a jerk – Chavez or Bush?

Historian M.G.S. Narayanan says the principal blame rests with the CPI(M) since it’s the dominant party in Kannur and now heads the ruling Left coalition. – Now, now, who’s history is it anyway? Kerala’s most reknowned saffron historian is indeed a nice catch!

Lopsided, nauseating piece in an otherwise great “Outlook”! John Mary’s previous articles gives you an idea of where he belongs, where his love lies. Why don’t he join CNN IBN?

And still if he hates the CPIM so bad, there are several valid issues to raise,

1. The dastardly acts of the Kochi administration in Muringur
2. The human rights abuses in the name of fighting Naxalism
3. The state budget of contradictions
Then the fourth estate cannot be advised on what to write. What drives John Marys?

Our mainstream media need not go far and around in search for “corrupt” politicians to expose their hypocrisy. They just need to sit around and read what their ilk write.

But then, no mainstream journalist will dissect this because…

a. He is the guy who doesn’t do his job – don’t think so?

b. He is lazy – thats me

c. umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – again! whats this?

d. He sold out – you mean he wants to cheat people?

P.S: Whats happening in Kannur is something that every Malayali hates. It has grown beyond political forces over the decades and become legends, myths and a thirst for blood which puts the malayali masculine to shame. The post is not about Kannur, a solution for which may not emerge any time soon. Its just sad.

Chief Minsiter V S Achuthanandan has expressed his desire to step down as CM to the central leadership. The speculation around why VS cleared his files before the Kottayam conference has now reached its inevitable conclusion. This will be the first time in CPIMs history that one of its Chief Minsters resigns. As the Kottayam Conference reaches its final phase, the majority of delegates have expressed irreconcilable differences with the functioning of the state government. Divorce is imminent.

Yeah! There we are. I was reading Malayala  Manorama after like eons. ‘Exciting newspaper’ would be too mild a word for the latex paper, it is an orgasmic newspaper, it drives you right there into that throbbing wedge of lies and embedded journalism. Even Pinarayi Vijayan, Prakash Karat or VS himself would be unaware of these developments. Its like good old soviet land where even if you live in the village you wouldn’t know about that six lane road and the fourteen new bridges. You need to read the Pravda.

But Politics is not so exciting, despite all the efforts of our media comrades. Otherwise, Parliamentary elections would have been over by now, and CPIMs defeat in the polls would have made VS resign as CM owning moral responsibility. Neither was a charge sheet filed in SNC lavlin case before the Party conference which would have ended the political career of Pinarayi Vijayan. But both the politicians survived to die another day. But is all well with the party at Kottayam given there are no fireworks like Malappuram or Palakkad conferences. Don’t think so.

The party has become a well-oiled machinery, a juggernaut with a management efficiency that corporates would envy. If the case that the party has not lost a single election in the past seven years is overkill, snippets from the Kottayam conference are just fine to prove the point. The party decided to do away with plastic in the run up to the conference six months back, and Kottayam has a “green” conference in all respects – that is just one subtle detail on where it is heading. Another aspect is the cut outs of leaders, of both Vijayan and VS, that line the town. Add to that statements by state leaders praising Pinarayi as the “height of malayali manhood” or VS supporters tearing up posters of “Roudram”. A personality cult is emerging, sycophants are setting up shop. It’s not a middle-class value, but too seditious. Thats a right turn from being a spectacle to being a mob.

I’m not taking sides with the “underdog” VS or the all powerful Vijayan faction. It would be a mistake to assume that groups like the ones in the Congress party exist, and it would be naive to assume that alls well. VS or the media has no right to criticize the Kannur lobby as Stalinists. If history is a reminder, VS was a ‘Stalinist’ himself, rummaging through opposition with all his might, be it the CITU faction in Palakkad or the Nayanar-Raghavan faction who proposed an alliance with Muslim league. And the North Kerala – South Kerala divide is there in CPIM from the day it tasted power.

Even the term “Vettinirathal” (the one now attached to the Kannur lobby), if you remember was coined for VS’s script with characters ranging from VB Cherian to Susheela Gopalan (whom VS cut down to pave way for his bitter noire EK Nayanar when the question of Chief Ministership came up in 1996).

Nor can VS justify his often blunt criticism of his own ministers, and the way he plays the media, where observers are often left to wonder on the state of party discipline. Even while agreeing to his taking up the people’s struggle across the length and breadth of the state, against Mafias and vested interests, one has to disagree with his methods which exclude the party. When the party is excluded from the struggle, it relies a lot on the “Power of One” and fails to become a mass movement, it doesn’t give you the brotherhood of the unknown man tied to you by a disciplined party machinery. No wonder VS’s campaigns are in most cases not sustainable, like Munnar, in the long term. It’s like right man, right party and both of no use to the other.

Photo Courtesy: Deni Lal 

As the official faction (ok fine, the party) points out discipline is very important. But when the party is so given to processes that it has to refer to the party constitution every four minutes, it stops living. It becomes a well managed business, like General Electric, with excellent processes to drive everything. But it loses its vitality.

Terming dissenting opinion as outdated and further calling it a breach of discipline sounds very very Orwellian. The basic understanding that the “ideological struggle has to continue until all manifestations of deviation are thoroughly wiped out from the realm of theory and praxis” is missing. There is no ideological debate happening. Neither VS nor Vijayan represents an ideology, but terming every uncomfortable question raised as dissent or “revisionist” will kill a party that survives by thought.

Point is the debate has to continue in the party, cadres need to be confused and thoughtful. Only at that point will the rust go off the knives and clear answers emerge from the chaos. Otherwise if February 14th as some say will be the last day of debates in Kerala CPIM, we’ll have a party that marches well, marches strong like it will take four hours to cross a point, marches loud that Kerala sits up and listens, but not knowing where it is marching. When the party exists for nothing but the party, the point will be to march forward for the sake of marching. This is what the Fascists did in Germany; this is why they failed, per Albert Camus. For an argument Albert Camus is dead, then Marx too and is Milton Freidman. Point is there is no point in marching, if you are marching for the sake of marching, not knowing why you are marching or where you are marching to.

P Krishnapillai’s last words “Sakhale Munnottu” asking his party to march ahead is an inspiration, but that does not support the case for forgetting what he warned of right before that, of the party slipping into a stage where there is “criticism but no self-criticism”. March ahead destroying the hypocrisies of our times, but let the inner churn not subside, keep the debate alive.

History is not only a document that lists events of the past, but also a warning about what may happen in the future. Warnings are not lullabies. The philosophy of hunger is that everybody gets hungry. Hence hunger, which is in our biological nature, teaches us equality. Which means poverty is a great organizer. There is hunger in the stomach, there is harvested crop in the barn – but these two things are not interlinked. This is what led to the struggles that threw away feudalism in the state. Hunger is a biological truth. Be it a rich person, a poor person or an intellectual, all are equal before this biological truth. The leftists in the state rooted and spread their wings as a symbol of the hungry class. Though most of us have forgotten, atleast some of us remember that the Comrades who made an indelible mark of their times in history did it through sacrifice and martyrdom. Our forefathers realized that sacrifice is a very fundamental social reality. There is no higher sacrifice than death. Because your life is the maximum you can give for a cause, and it is a very strong factor in driving a cause. Hence sacrifice becomes the initial capital of an ideology. The idea of unity among the oppressed class leads to the idea of sacrifice for the oppressed class. This is the greatest sacrifice the Party can do for the social human being. The meaning, value and history of KrishnaPillai’s or Bhagat Singh’s sacrifice is that they did not do it for themselves, but for the society. Hence martyrdom constructs ethos. Ethos creates an Organization. And then the Organization develops, expands – it becomes a Miracle, it becomes a Spectacle, it becomes a Mob. – M N Vijayan, 25 June 2005 (Translated from malayalam)